Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (7 page)

To the west, the setting sun decorated the crooked tips of aged riverbank willows with flecks of gold. The river was short on water but long on algae, giving it the look of a long, greasy sash, narrow and dark green, and emitting a dank, slightly fishy odor. Beards had already appeared on the squat, dried-out wheat stalks north of the riverbank; a layer of dust covered the leaves. Lotus plants floating on ponds south of the river were under-sized and anemic; tiny bubbles broke the surface amid the plants from time to time. On the bridge east of where Xiangzi sat, lines of pedestrian and vehicle traffic were unbroken and, under the afternoon sun, seemingly rushed. As dusk neared, a feeling of unease appeared to affect the travelers. For Xiangzi’s senses, this all conspired to spark delight and adoration. Only this strip of water counted as a river, and only those trees, stalks of wheat, lotus leaves, and the bridge were worthy of the name, because they were all part of Beiping.

He sat there, happily idle, filling his eyes with familiar, affectionate sights; if he never moved from that spot, he’d die a happy man. After sitting a while longer, he got up and went to the bridgehead, where he ordered a bowl of briny bean curd, with vinegar, soy sauce, pepper oil, and chives; when heated, it smelled so good it took his breath away. His hand shook when he accepted the bowl, with bright green chives floating on top. He took a bite, and the bean curd burned its way down. He put down the bowl and added two spoonfuls of pepper oil to the mixture. By the time he’d finished, his pant sash was wet with sweat. His eyes were half closed as he handed back the bowl. “Another,” he said.

Now, as he stood up, Xiangzi felt human again. The sun hung at the far western edge of the sky, turning the water in the river a soft red. Feeling like shouting for joy, he rubbed the smooth scar on his face, then felt the coins in his bag before gazing up at the sun resting atop the bridge. He forced the recent illness out of his mind, along with everything else; his aspirations restored, he was now ready to enter the city proper.

All manner of vehicles and people crowded through the city gate, and though no one dared to rush, they all wanted to get through as quickly as possible. Sounds—cracking whips, shouts, curses, horns, bells, laughter—merged and were amplified by the gate’s acoustics, with, it seemed, everyone creating noise at the same time, one loud buzz. Moving ahead by stepping where he could and elbowing his way through the crowd, he squeezed into the city like a fish riding the waves. The first thing he saw was New Street, broad and straight. His eyes lit up, like the glinting of the sun on rooftops south of where he stood. He nodded his appreciation.

Since his bedding was waiting for him at Harmony Shed on Xi’an Gate Road, that was where he was headed. With no family to worry about, he’d bunked there even when he wasn’t renting one of their rickshaws. The boss of Harmony Shed, Fourth Master Liu, was nearly seventy but did not live up to the honest notion of a man his age. As a young man, he’d been a guard at an army depot, had run gambling dens, had dealt in slave traffic, and had profited from usury. He possessed all the attributes and talents required in these callings: strength, shrewdness, tricks, connections, and reputation. He’d been involved in gang fights and had kidnapped young women from good families before the fall of the last dynasty. For that, he had been tortured; without begging for mercy, and by standing firm at his trials, he had earned a reputation. His release from prison coincided with the establishment of the new republic and a rapid increase in the authority of the militia. Fourth Master Liu could see that the heroes of an earlier age now belonged to the past, and even if the legendary Li Da and Wu Song were to reappear, their skills would find no outlet. So he opened a rickshaw rental shed. Thanks to his experiences in low places, he knew how to deal with poor people, when to tighten the ropes and when to loosen them. In short, he was a master of manipulation, and none of the rickshaw men dared stand up to him. Glaring at them one moment and laughing with them the next, he had them so cowed they felt they had one foot in heaven and one in hell; he always prevailed. Eventually, he owned more than sixty rickshaws, all in good to excellent shape—no run-down rickshaws for him—for which he charged a higher rent than his competitors. But he gave his men an extra day’s pay at each of the three major holidays, and Harmony Shed supplied quarters for bachelor pullers, no charge, except for the vehicle rent. Men who did not pay up or who argued with Liu had their bedding confiscated and were thrown out like discarded canteens. But if one of them had an urgent matter to attend to or was laid low with an illness, all he had to do was tell Fourth Master. Without the slightest equivocation, he was ready with a helping hand, and nothing would stop him, not a fire and not a flood. That is how one earns a reputation.

Fourth Master Liu was like a tiger. Despite his age, he had a straight back and thought nothing of walking two or three miles. He had big, round eyes, a large nose, a square jaw, and a pair of protruding teeth that gave him the look of a tiger when he opened his mouth. He was as tall as Xiangzi and, like the younger man, had a shaved head that fairly shone and no beard. He liked to think of himself as a tiger, but he had produced no male cub. He had an unwed daughter of thirty-seven or eight, and anyone who knew Fourth Master Liu knew his daughter, Huniu—Tiger Girl. She, too, looked like a tiger, which scared off all the men, but she was a great help to her father; she just couldn’t find a man willing to marry her. In fact, she might as well have been a man, the way she cursed and carried on, and that was only the beginning. With Fourth Master Liu taking charge of the rickshaws and Huniu taking care of business, Harmony Shed ran like a well-oiled machine. It enjoyed the status of authority among rickshaw sheds, and talk of how Liu and his daughter ran their business was often on the lips of rickshaw men and their bosses, the way scholars quote the classics.

Before he’d put away enough to buy his first rickshaw, Xiangzi had rented from Harmony Shed and had handed his earnings to Fourth Master Liu for safekeeping. When he finally had enough, he took the money from Liu and bought his new rickshaw.

“What do you think of my rickshaw, Fourth Master?” Xiangzi asked.

The old man looked it over and nodded. “Not bad.”

“I’d like to keep staying here, at least until I get a monthly hire. I can move out then.” There was pride in Xiangzi’s voice.

“Fine.” Again Fourth Master Liu nodded.

Eventually, Xiangzi did find a monthly hire, and he moved out. He was told that any time he went back to picking up rides, he was welcome at Harmony Shed.

Bedding down in Harmony Shed without renting one of Fourth Master Liu’s rickshaws was, in the eyes of other rickshaw men, a rare occurrence, so some guessed that he must be related to the old man. But even more of them assumed that the old man had his eye on Xiangzi as a possible groom for Huniu and a replacement son for him. While this assumption was clearly informed by a measure of envy, if one day it turned out to be true, then when Fourth Master Liu died, Harmony Shed would pass on to Xiangzi. For the moment, however, this was just idle gossip and not something anyone dared to bring up in Xiangzi’s presence. What they didn’t know was that Fourth Master had other reasons for treating Xiangzi differently. He saw him as being capable of sticking to the old ways in new surroundings. If he were to join the army, he wouldn’t start acting stupid just so he could bully people when he put on the feared uniform. He kept busy when he was in the yard, and once he stopped sweating, he looked for something to do: cleaning rickshaws, pumping up the tires, airing out the rain hoods, oiling the moving parts…no one had to ask him to do these things, he did them on his own and was happy to do so; it was his favorite form of entertainment. Twenty or so men bunked in Harmony Shed, and when they brought their rickshaws in, they either sat around shooting the breeze or slept. All but Xiangzi, the only one who was never idle. At first, the others thought he was sucking up to Fourth Master Liu. But it took only a few days for them to realize that that was the furthest thing from his mind. He was sincere, he was artless, and he had nothing to say to anyone. Old Man Liu never uttered a word of praise or ever gave him a special look. But he had things worked out in his head. He was well aware that Xiangzi was a good worker, which is why he was willing to let him stay there even when he wasn’t renting one of Liu’s rickshaws. With Xiangzi around, the yard and gate were always swept clean, to give but one example. And Huniu was fond of this foolish big fellow. Xiangzi always stopped to listen to what she had to say, and he never quarreled with her. The other men, plagued by suffering, often talked back to her. She was not afraid of these men, and she usually ignored them, saving whatever she wanted to say for Xiangzi. So when he found a monthly hire, Fourth Master and his daughter felt as if they’d lost a friend. Then the next time he returned, even when Fourth Master was yelling at one of the men, he didn’t seem so angry—almost kindly.

Xiangzi walked into Harmony Shed clutching his two boxes of matches. Night had not yet fallen, and Fourth Master and his daughter were having dinner. Huniu put down her chopsticks the minute she saw him.

“Xiangzi!” she shouted. “Did you get taken off by a wolf? Or maybe you went gold prospecting in Africa!”

“Hmm” was all Xiangzi said.

Fourth Master ran his eyes over Xiangzi but said nothing. Still wearing his new straw hat, Xiangzi sat down across from them. “Join us if you haven’t eaten,” Huniu said, as if welcoming a close friend.

Xiangzi did not budge, but a warm, hard-to-describe feeling flooded over him. Harmony Shed had always been home to him. He’d have a series of monthly hires, and then he’d be out on the street again for a while. And all that time he had a place to stay, right here in Harmony Shed, and someone to talk to. After barely escaping with his life, he was back among friends, people who invited him to join them at the table, and he’d have been forgiven for thinking that this was all a cruel trick. But, no, he was nearly in tears.

“I had two bowls of bean curd a while ago,” he said politely.

“Where have you been?” Fourth Master Liu asked, his eyes still fixed on Xiangzi. “Where’s your rickshaw?”

“Rickshaw?” Xiangzi spat in anguish.

“Come eat first,” Huniu said as she pulled him up to the table, like an affectionate elder sister.

“We won’t poison you, and two bowls of bean curd hardly make a meal.”

Instead of picking up a bowl, Xiangzi took out his money. “Fourth Master,” he said, “would you hold this for me? Thirty yuan.” He returned the small change to his pocket.

“Where’d you get it?” Fourth Master’s eyebrows formed the question.

Xiangzi related his experience with the soldiers as he ate. “You young fool,” Fourth Master said, shaking his head. “If you’d brought those camels into town and sold them to a slaughterhouse, you could have gotten ten or fifteen a head. In the winter, when they’re done molting, they’d have brought in sixty yuan!”

Xiangzi already had qualms, and this news only made him feel worse. But on second thought, selling three living, breathing creatures to face the knife didn’t seem right. He and the camels had escaped together, and they all deserved to live. He said nothing, his heart at peace.

While Huniu was clearing the table, Fourth Master looked up, as if mulling something over. He smiled, revealing those two fangs, which were getting harder with age. “What a simpleton you are. You say you fell ill at Haidian. Then why didn’t you take the Yellow Village road straight back here?”

“I went the long way around the Western Hills to avoid running into trouble. If the villagers thought I was a deserter, they’d have come after me.”

Fourth Master smiled and rolled his eyes. He’d been afraid that Xiangzi was lying about where he’d gotten the thirty yuan, and he wouldn’t have been able to hold it for him if it had been stolen. As a young man, if it was illegal, he’d done it. Now he declared he was on the straight and narrow, and that required caution, something he had gotten good at. There had only been that one hole in Xiangzi’s tale of woe, but his explanation made it possible for the old man to breathe easy.

“What do you plan to do with this?” he asked, pointing to the money.

“You tell me.”

“Want to buy another rickshaw?” Once again, the fangs appeared, which seemed to mean “You plan to use your own rickshaw but live here for free, is that it?”

“There isn’t enough. I’m only interested in buying a new one.” Xiangzi was too occupied with his own thoughts to notice Fourth Master Liu’s fangs.

“Want a loan? Ten percent interest. For others I charge twenty percent.”

Xiangzi shook his head. “Better to pay me ten percent than borrow from a loan shark.”

“I say no to both,” Xiangzi said, almost spellbound. “I’ll save up, little by little, until I’ve got enough to pay cash.”

The old man looked at Xiangzi as if he were a written character he’d never seen before. No matter how unpleasant things might be, he could not get angry. After a moment, he picked up the money. “Thirty? You’re sure that’s all?”

“That’s all!” Xiangzi stood up. “Time to turn in. Here’s a box of matches.” He laid a box on the table, stood there vacantly for a moment, and then added, “Don’t tell anyone about the camels.”

CHAPTER FIVE

A
s promised, Old Man Liu told no one of Xiangzi’s experiences, but the camel story quickly spread from Haidian into the city. In the past, people had found little fault with Xiangzi, except that he was stubbornly antisocial and a bit difficult to deal with. But “Camel Xiangzi” was a different matter. Though he continued to work quietly and stayed clear of people, they began to see him in a different light. Some said he’d found a gold watch, others that he’d come into possession of three hundred yuan, and one person, who considered himself to be the only one in the know, nodded confidently and said that Xiangzi had brought thirty camels back from the Western Hills. The stories differed, but the conclusions did not: through shady dealings Xiangzi had struck it rich, and anyone who came in to easy money, whether he was on good terms with people or not, was worthy of respect. Selling one’s muscle is a hard way to make a living, so who could be blamed for dreaming of ill-gotten riches, no matter how long the odds? No wonder such people were seen as favored by fate. And so, sullen and standoffish Xiangzi was transformed into a man of distinction who had every right to be taciturn and was worthy of being fawned over.